


To Be a Master

by HeWhoIsMany



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Age Progression, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28873683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeWhoIsMany/pseuds/HeWhoIsMany
Summary: An obnoxious college students says the wrong thing at a tournament, and gets a punishment he would never have seen coming.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	To Be a Master

It all started with a Pokémon tournament. Darren had been a fan for a while, and now that he was in college, was starting to think of trying it out competitively. That’s why, when he saw a local game store was having an event, he made sure to attend.

Of course, it was a small store, so it was a small tournament. Less than twenty people were even there, and most of them were kids. His team of level 100’s weren’t perfectly EV trained and didn’t have great IV’s, but it was obvious that wouldn’t matter. This was a friendly tournament for kids, something casual, and there was no point in winning.

Or at least, he didn’t think there was, until he saw the prize: $100 in store credit. Darren was a poor young adult, and this store sold more than a few things he’d really wanted he could use that credit for. Any fears about picking on kids by crushing them in the tournament stopped. He entered at the front desk and was told the rules: 3 Pokémon each, no level cap, single elimination, choose whoever you want to play against first.

It made him want to laugh. Had the old man running this store done any research? This was a terrible way to run a tournament! Still, it would make winning easy. He looked around and quickly picked out who he wanted to play against.

She was a little girl, maybe ten or eleven years old at most, with her hair in a ponytail and a gap between her front teeth. She couldn’t have looked more innocent if she tried. As Darren approached her, carrying his DS, she smiled and asked, “I haven’t played yet, did you want to battle?”

It made him want to laugh. Calling it a battle would be ridiculous. “Sounds good to me, kid,” he told her, and they used the local online functionality in their games to get the battle going. He didn’t have to worry too much about having a balanced team, so he chose his three among what were basically just his favorite Pokémon: Amoonguss, Accelgor, and Lilligant.

He couldn’t stop himself from snorting when he saw the first Pokémon she sent out, a level 45 Serperior she’d nicknamed ‘Amanda’. She clearly didn’t like the sound, buffing out her cheeks and asking, “What’s so funny?”

Unable to help himself, Darren decided to break to her what he thought was the obvious truth. “Nothing, just that girls can’t play Pokémon.”

If anything, he expected the girl to cry over what he said, or get angry. Instead, something strange shone in her eyes for a moment, and she muttered something under her breath that he couldn’t hear. Then she selected her first move, and Darren did the same. His Amoonguss has a poison move that should have one-shot the far underleveled enemy.

There was only one issue...’Amanda used Protect’. As the name implied, the move stopped the Serperior from taking any damage, and it pissed Darren off. “So what if you survived a turn,” he spat, getting annoyed. He didn’t notice that his voice sounded higher pitched than it should have, or that his brown hair was starting to grow longer.

His opponent sure noticed, though, and she liked it. Smiling strangely now, she chose her next move quickly, with confidence that Darren didn’t like. Looking at his four options again, he tried to decide, not noticing something strange had occurred...his Amoonguss wasn’t level 100 anymore. In fact, none of his Pokémon were. They were all barely above 50 as he finally chose his next move: Toxic. Winning with that particular status effect would feel really good.

There was only one thing he forgot...it isn’t 100% sure to hit. In fact, the move missed, and the other Pokémon was able to get off a damaging move of its own: Wring Out. It did way more damage that Darren was expecting, though if he’d noticed that his Pokémon was now under his opponent’s level, it would have made more sense.

They traded moves back and forth, but nothing Darren did hit. Finally, just before his Serperior got so underleveled that it shouldn’t have even been evolved, it was knocked out. By this point, Darren’s anger was starting to ebb away, and confusion was replacing it. How could he lose? He was so good at this game!

Or at least...he thought he was...

That’s when he felt a hand on his shoulder, it was his opponent, looking genuinely compassionate, and she told him, “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sure you’ll do better with your next Pokémon.”

Maybe a few minutes earlier, such a gesture would have just made Darren more upset. But at that point, he couldn’t bring himself to get made. After all, she was just being nice, right? “Thanks,” he mumbled, and by this point his voice wasn’t masculine at all, just completely androgynous instead.

But it wasn’t just his voice that had started to change. His brown hair was shaggy now, long enough that it was almost last his neckline, and the relatively athletic build he’d started to reach after years of light exercise was disappearing, leaving him with a far more lean frame.

As weird as this all was, Darren still hadn’t noticed it at all. Choosing who to send out next wasn’t too hard, he had to go for Accelgor. The fact that said Pokémon was now only in the low 40’s was something he missed as well. Before choosing his move, Darren realized he had something he wanted to ask her. “So...why do you nickname your Pokémon?” It was never a thing he’d done, and he didn’t get the point of it.

The girl giggled, but it sounded different than it had before. If Darren hadn’t been under a spell that prevented him from seeing the alterations around him as they happened, he would have realized she was at least a teengaer by that point, and getting older. “It helps me stay connected with my Pokémon, you should try it sometimes.” It was a sentiment that Darren would normally laugh at, but now he almost felt like...it made sense...

As this second round of the battle started, Darren started running into new difficulties. He was having issues remembering what his Pokémon’s moves did...which was weird. He’d trained this team up, picked out moves he thought would be the most strategically advantageous...and now he wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if he used some of them. Like, what even was ‘Me First’?

Confusion was starting to give way to fear. Why was he doing so badly? His body still changing, Darren just chose a move at random, and it was a bad one. The Grass move he chose did almost no damage to Amanda, and the fully evolved starter was easily able to return with a powerful move that sunk Accelgor into the red.

Biting his lip, Darren saw that Accelgor had Protect. Hadn’t that been the move that the girl used before, that saved her Pokémon? Hoping it would do something like that for him, he chose it, but for some reason the game said it failed. The enemy Serperior was easily able to finish off Accelgor, knocking it out, and tears welled up in Darren’s eyes.

He felt so embarrassed. Why was he crying? He was in public! But...at the same time, he felt like he couldn’t help it. He was losing to a kid at his favorite game! It wasn’t fair! It was hard, but Darren was able to stop himself from crying as he chose his last available Pokémon, Peti the Petilil. The fact it was unevolved, in the 20’s level-wise, and had a nickname didn’t draw his attention at all.

Neither did the fact that he didn’t look like a man at all anymore. His long hair was glossy, clearly well-cared for, and it had somehow drawn itself up into buns at the top of his head. He had a pretty, feminine face, a modest pair of breasts under his t-shirt, and he was filling out his leggings with quite the feminine build.

Oh, what’s that, leggings? He certainly didn’t come to the event wearing leggings, but in a hoodie and a pair of jeans. But at some point in the battle, those had disappeared, replaced with a blue and white shirt with a red Pokéball logo on it, a yellow skirt, and the aforementioned black leggings. He was just missing a few key changes from being complete, and his opponent knew that.

His opponent who, by now, was the same as he was. “Hey, don’t feel bad,” she told him, giving him a warm smile. “Just do your best, it’s all just for fun, right?” Darren found himself agreeing with the idea and cheering up, the idea of the prize he’d been so excited for completely forgotten by this point.

There was really no way for him to win. His opponent was twice his level, and the little Peti was cute, but not exactly a powerhouse. That particular battle only lasted one round, even after Peti was able to get a critical hit on Amanda.

But Darren had taken her words to heart, and didn’t feel bad. The match had still been fun, and it felt like this teenage girl could be a good friend. “Good game,” Darren told her, really meaning every word of it.

The girl looked happy too, and she extended a hand as she repeated what Darren had told her. “Yeah, good game.” Darren took her hand, and that’s when the spell was able to complete its work.

Just as the private parts that Darren usually kept hidden retreated inside him, turning into something completely different, a hat appeared on his head, the band wrapping around his hair without messing with his hair buns. From head to toe, Darren looked nothing like the college guy he’d been when he came to the store in the first place.

But the spell wasn’t done there, not by a long shot. One second, Darren and his opponent were standing in a store, holding DS’s. The next, they were in what looked like a field clearing, with various people all around them.

And all of them had Pokémon.

Various battles were going on all around them, but theirs was finished. A fainted Peti the Petilil lay at his feet, and a triumphant Amanda the Serperior was only feet away, directly in front of its trainer. And that trainer was clearly the girl Darren had been battling over a video game...but at the same time, she wasn’t. Now, the trainer was wearing an outfit that definitely rang a few bells for Darren. A white hat, black vest over a tank top, shorts...she looked just like... “Hilda?” Darren asked, tentatively.

Only now, as he said those words, did he realize his voice sounded completely wrong. When did he get so girly sounding? Looking down at himself, he saw the changes for the first time, and gaped. He looked like a girl! Not just any girl either, but- “Yep, I’m Hilda, and you’re Rosa,” the other trainer said, clearly very amused by this whole thing. “Well, I was always Hilda, but you weren’t always Rosa.”

Looking all around him, Darren tried to understand what he was seeing, what he was feeling. “Why?” he said, quietly at first, as if he was scared to hear his feminine voice again. “Why did you do this?” He didn’t know if he sounded mad. In fact, Darren didn’t know if he felt mad. Being a girl all of a sudden was, well, strange, but he was in the Pokémon world! It was kind of hard to be upset when he was in the coolest universe imaginable.

It looked like Hilda could tell that he wasn’t exactly about to ask for her to take him back to where he came from. “Well, I was  _ trying _ to have a fun time at a game tournament, but the first person to challenge me was a jerk who was looking to pick on a weak kid.” Then, feigning recalling something she’d forgotten, she added, “Oh, and then he went and made a sexist comment about girls being bad at Pokémon.”

Darren flinched. That...was all absolutely true. He couldn’t really deny the charges, even if he wasn’t sure if they warranted being turned into a woman. “Do you think you could...?” Darren asked, gesturing at himself. Like, did he have to look like a Pokémon protagonist, even if he had to be a girl?

With a laugh, Hilda nodded her head and made a weird gesture. “Sure thing, another spell, coming up!” There was a weird buzzing feeling, but that was it.

Confused, Rosa asked, “Wait, what did you do? Did it work?” It was only then that she realized. Her voice sounded normal to her! Her body felt like it had always been that way! She didn’t feel like Darren at all anymore, she absolutely felt like Rosa! She still remembered being Darren, though, it just...wasn’t who she was anyway. “You changed my mind?”

“Well yeah, don’t you feel better now?” Hilda asked. She took a Pokéball from her belt and used it to withdraw Amanda. Realizing she should do the same, Rosa did withdrew Peti, and the motion came to her...naturally. Like she’d been using Pokéballs for ages.

Realizing she had a new mind and a new body, which meant a new life, Rosa started checking what she knew about her new self. She was on her journey in Unova, and only had two badges so far. “I...thank you,” Rosa told Hilda. It may not have been what she was expecting, but it felt good nonetheless. Then, even though she definitely didn’t mind being a girl anymore, asked, “So, were you thinking of turning me back, or am I just Rosa forever?”

Hilda tapped a finger to her chin, as she considered the question. “Well, if you want to go back to your world, I can easily send you there and turn you back, just say the words.” Rosa frowned at that. She didn’t want to go back to her world, even if it meant changing back. It was so boring there! Who wanted to be a college student, when they could be a Pokémon trained instead? Seeing that was her intention, Hilda added, “You can also stay here if you’d like, and maybe if you become the champion, then I’d let you turn back, if you still want to. Sound like a deal?”

Looking down at the three Pokéballs in her bag, Rosa didn’t have to give the question much thought. “If I still want to,” she replied, smiling, a lot of emphasis on the ‘if’. “It shouldn’t be too hard, I already kinda did it once.” She didn’t have all her Pokémon knowledge, or if she did some of it was still buried under the second set of memories, but Rosa felt sure it was possible. It was time to head to Castelia City, so she could get her next badge. A whole world of Pokémon out there...going to that tournament had been the best decision of her life.


End file.
